BURST ANGEL
 VOL 1: DEATH'S ANGEL 
 (MVM Region 2 PAL DVD)
(2005)
review by Blackgloves

A new year in the anime-viewing calendar also quickly yields a brand new anime series curtesy of the ever-active releasing schedule of MVM -- although there are more than a few things in "Burst Angel" that will seem curiously familiar to regular anime watchers. A strangely dayglow bright, Blade Runner-esque vision of a near-future Tokyo is the setting for this hi-tech leap into kick-ass, gun-slinging, scantily-glad action girl territory; but the traditional, transforming-giant-robot battles that have inhabited Japanese anime since year dot are never far from the centre of action. Studio GONZO have thrown near-enough every genre and anime convention known to man at the screen as part of this series, with the result being something of a jumbled assault on the senses: a perky, pretty-pink distopia of crime-ridden, neon-lit streets, where gun-totten', bouncy-breasted female crime fighters in figure-hugging latex join forces with a large-eyed, short-skirted school girl and a trainee pastry chef (?!) in service of a mysterious boss known only as Bailan!

Along with physics-defying robots (nicknamed cybots here) and their graceful -- and apparently limitless -- powers of transformation, the series grounds itself in the now overused anime trope involving naive and awkward young males surrounded by vivacious young women whose clothes have a habit of detaching themselves from their owners' lithe & luscious young bodies at the drop of a hat! Our hero here is Tachibana Kyohci: a trainee pastry Chef at the "Love & Happy Cooking School" who answers a colourful advertising flyer for a cook who is willing to feed four young working women and finds himself introduced to a slime, purple-clad young woman in a flash sports car called Sei. Kyochi is immediately intrigued, but is not prepared for the full-on babe extravaganza that will soon fill his day-to-day life -- along with constant danger and explosions, of course!

Sei takes Kyohci to a dilapidated car park where a gleaming, computerised, armoured battle truck (with flash living quarters and a kitchen) has been, rather incongruously, parked. Inside he is introduced to Meg: a fiery, flame-haired action Goddess with a gravity-defying chest; Jo: blue-haired, no-nonsense and hard-as-nails, but undeniably sexy; and finally, Amy: a bouncy school kid with enough energy to power a whole city for a year! These are Kyochi's new employers -- a kind of futuristic Charlie's Angels! Their agenda is rather obscured in this volume but rest assured, it involves relentless gun battles and constant danger in the service of their own barely mentioned employer, Bailan.

The back story for the society all this take place in the midst of, is informed by a kind of mishmash of "Robo Cop" and "Resident Evil": in a crime-ridden Toyko, an edict has been passed allowing everyone to carry and use firearms. The Government police force, known as RAPT, enforces law at the point of a machine gun -- arrest rates are down because RAPT tend to dispense a brutal bloody justice on the streets with the aid of massive guns and hulking robot police units! Something even more sinister is going on in secret underground labs deep beneath the city streets though, and Kyohci's association with the Burst Angels thrusts him straight into the middle of this clandestine conspiracy. A routine mission to bust a drugs gang leads the four heroines into bizarre plot involving secret genetic experiments on criminals by a pharmaceuticals company with access to its own prototype armoured cybot units -- is RAPT involved in this monstrous conspiracy?

Besides the familiarity of its themes, "Burst Angels" also reminds one of other recent shows in its character design: the design for Meg, for instance, can't help but recall *******, the similarly partially clothed, re-haired heroine from Kiddy Grade. These first four episodes lay the groundwork for the rest of the series quite well in setting up the story, but one hopes it manages to take all of these elements we've seen countless times before in an original direction. At the moment, the show's only real misstep lies with the horrendous Japanese rapping that occurs in the theme song: Japanese and rap do not go together well!

"Burst Angel" comes with the usual high standard English dub track from Geneon (in 5.1 Surround sound) plus the original Japanese 5.1 Surround track. The extras for this volume are quite original: five excerpts from a radio show hosted by two of the Japanese voice actresses from the series. These give you some authentic Japanese ambience if nothing else!

"Burst Angel" is a high standard production from GONZO but it still has a bit of work to do to fully convince me it is quite the anime sensation it is being touted as.